The Miracle of Hats
Let’s say I’m a blessed man, at least regarding hair, or so goes the conventional wisdom. At seventy years of age, I still have a full head of hair. I remember from a very early age watching my father donning a hat to cover the few remaining wisps of hair left from his male pattern baldness. My Dad’s concern was less about vanity and more about avoiding the painful sunburn that his love of the outdoors would inflict on his exposed pate. I’ve spent my entire life feeling destined to thinning and disappearing hair, but it never happened. Just when I began to think I was truly blessed, then the popular belief emerged that ample testosterone is mainly responsible for male pattern baldness. Now, I’ve started to wonder if I am something less than virile. Maybe a full head of hair is the public symbol of a wimp, and I should consider a toupee that makes me look bald.
Despite recent theories about testosterone, male vanity in our culture often involves waves of stylish hair. Enough so to fuel a robust implant and regrowth industry. However, the full head of hair, which elicits envy among a fair portion of the male population, comes at a cost. It requires regular washing, fixing, and cutting. Since the relaxed life of a retired nomad affords less impetus for grooming, the compromise between coiffure le mountain man and standard social acceptability involves accessorizing with a baseball hat. And the transformation is nothing less than a miracle. It has now become the hairstyle solution that I fully embrace!
When I initially stumbled upon the miracle of hats, I only tried to cover the sin of unkempt hair. But not very far into this phase, I discovered that the benefits of hat-wearing extend well beyond retroactive hair brushing. For instance, I always felt helpless when my favorite sports teams went into a slump. There is something I can do! It is common practice for us hat wearers to don a cap featuring the colors and logo of the team we wish to support during the game. It clearly helps. It’s probably not on par with prayer, but it’s a close second and is less blasphemous when it comes to influencing the outcome of a sporting event. I’ve heard rumors that turning your hat sideways can have a powerful effect on the game. But I’m afraid to try this minor magic spell because I’m not sure I can get the timing right.
Another benefit to wearing hats is the ability to blend into almost any locale simply by donning the appropriate chapeau. It’s a kind of cultural camouflage. Actual camouflage hats do this in most rural and outdoor settings. But there are many more options. For instance, I dust off my Georgia Bulldogs hat when I go to Georgia. Wearing the “G” on crimson serves a dual purpose because I’m also a Georgia Bulldogs fan. Unfortunately, the hat-prayer thing did not work in the Alabama game this year, but I blended in well with all my fellow Georgia mourners.
My son has furnished me with a lovely brown and gold Cowboys hat for my time in Wyoming. Like the Georgia Bulldog hat, it has a dual purpose because my other favorite NCAA football team towers above their competition at Laramie, Wyoming. At 7,220 feet above sea level, War Memorial Stadium, where the Wyoming Cowboys play their home games, is the highest gridiron in the nation. I will have to work on my hat-wearing technique to help them gain the status of their compatriots in Georgia. Nevertheless, the friendly “Go Pokes” greeting I sometimes get when wearing it is heart-warming.
I wear an elegant black Seoul Foreign School hat in South Korea. It’s not all that recognizable in Seoul, but when I add a pair of classy sunglasses, I think I look like Tom Selleck from Magnum PI. Who could argue with that image?
Hats also perform serious functions that go beyond vanity. I have a lovely red hardshell helmet with ear protection and a face screen to wear while running the chainsaw. It also does an admirable job of covering my unruly cowlicks, but I’m not sure anyone would care about my lack of stylish hair when cutting wood. Perhaps some random deer passing through the woods would “tut, tut” over my careless hairstyle, but I wear the helmet to protect my facilities, not just to satisfy a wilderness fashion sense.
I also have a bright orange cap handy when fishing during hunting season. It has just barely the number of square inches of garish fabric to satisfy the safety requirements of Game and Fish. It also covers my hair, but more importantly, it marks my head as a non-target. It’s good not to have one’s full head of dark hair mistaken for a black bear during hunting season.
Another beneficial side effect of hats is that they promote social interaction. Strangers are emboldened to comment freely with thoughts about my hats. While waiting for a tour of a historic mansion in Madison, Georgia, a fellow from Minnesota proudly mentioned his joy in the Viking’s recent victory over the Green Bay Packers while gesturing at my hat. I admit that I was pleased to tell him that the “G” on my hat was for the Georgia Bulldogs. I tried to ease his embarrassment by mentioning that my Vikings’ hat was at home and that I shared his joy in the uncharacteristic Minnesota victory. Oddly, that was not the only time I had the pleasure of correcting the misunderstanding that the “G” on my Georgia Bulldogs hat does not stand for the Green Bay Packers. It mystifies me how one can mistake Georgia’s scarlet red for Green Bay’s hunter green. I suppose color blindness is an excuse, but my goodness! As a side note, I’ve never had my Minnesota Vikings hat mistaken for anything else. However, I’ve determined that wearing it benefits only your appearance and has absolutely no salutary effect on the represented team’s ability to win.
Another example of the social impact of hats happened in the open-air market in Seoul, South Korea, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people (perhaps millions, it’s hard to tell in Seoul). Wearing my Wyoming Cowboys hat, as I wormed through the crowd, I heard a loud exclamation from a stranger, “Are you from Wyoming?” I guess people who have Wyoming in common can’t truly be strangers. But it was a bit surreal, in one of the most densely populated places in the world, to have a lovely conversation about one of the least populated regions of the industrial world. The meeting ended in a traditional “Go, Pokes!” I am happy that I failed to follow my standard protocol that day by wearing the brown and gold of Wyoming instead of my typical Soul Foreign Schools black and silver. Sometimes, cultural camouflage is not everything it’s cracked up to be.
Last weekend, when I left at 5:00 a.m. to watch my grandson play in a soccer tournament in Casper, I accidentally left my Wyoming Cowboys hat on the kitchen counter. I was at the mercy of the bright morning sunshine without that lovely hat bill. A quick trip to Walmart produced a brand-spanking new John Deere hat and a snazzy set of sunglasses. It was an emergency, and it’s not just that I’ve been hankering for a JD hat for months. Now I need some time and the dust raised by our John Deere 450C bulldozer to make it look right.
Indeed, hats are a miracle, or can be if you think about them correctly. As male pattern baldness fails to creep its way across my scalp, I’ve succumbed to a hat fetish with open arms. As long as I have hair, and probably even if I don’t, you’ll see me sporting a stylish baseball cap anywhere, anytime. Well, except I can’t overcome my inner compulsion to uncover during church. God gave me this unruly mop, so He should see it when I worship Him. I am, after all, thankful for my hair and probably need forgiveness for my social gracelessness. It’s just that it is much easier to manage the stuff matted under a classy hat. Oh, I also uncover for Old Glory, especially when my granddaughter is singing the national anthem. It’s a short exposure, and everybody is supposed to look at the flag anyway. So, I’m delighted with my new hairstyling method. Besides, think of all the side benefits of the miracle of hats that I just mentioned. Now, if I could get something to cover my chin, I could also give up shaving so often.